Alpha and Omega
by Raziel12
Summary: In the end, there was no salvation, no new world. Now, Lighting has a choice to make, and Lumina is there to make sure she understands that sometimes there are no good choices. Or maybe there are. After all, even gods can be wrong. Warning: Contains elements from Lightning Returns and a lot of the mythology from the Final Fantasy XIII series.


**Alpha and Omega**

Lightning opened her eyes.

Only failure greeted her.

There was no new world.

There was no salvation.

There was only an endless expanse of white light stretching out in all directions. Above her, the sky was awash with newly born stars. Each breath she took was the passing of an age, each beating of her heart a thousand lifetimes. Then the stars faded, dying one by one until all was still and quiet. Only darkness remained in the heavens, darkness and cold.

She fell to her knees. Beneath her, the light was cold and smooth. It was the icy perfection of crystal, not the warmth of the sun. She laughed. Crystal. Her whole life was crystal. Perfect and cold and lonely and now it didn't mean a damn thing. She'd failed, and the absolute, monumental scale of that failure was enough to pierce even the inhuman numbness she'd felt since awakening.

"Did you really think you could save all of them?"

Footsteps.

Mocking laughter.

"Did you really think he would make another world for us?"

A ragged wail burst from Lighting's lips. "You!" She turned, fumbled for her gun blade, and tackled Lumina to the ground. The other woman's resemblance to Serah no longer mattered. The only thing that mattered was ripping her throat out. She'd do it with her teeth if she had to. But she was done listening to Lumina, done giving a damn about what she thought. "You did this!"

Despite the kiss of Lightning's blade against her throat, Lumina smiled. But beneath the haughty look there was only emptiness as vast as the darkened sky above them. For a moment, it was Serah looking back at Lightning, Serah wondering what they would do now that their parents were dead.

"No, it isn't."

"Liar!" Lightning grabbed Lumina by her hair and pulled until she knew it had to hurt. "This is your fault! It has to be. I did everything he said. He promised there would be another world. He told me that I could save them – that I could save her!"

"He lied to you." Lumina pulled Lightning's hand out of her hair. A few strands of pink came away with it. Like a serpent, she rose up into a sitting position, and Lightning stumbled away. "Bhunivelze lied to you. Etro lied to you. Your friends lied to you."

The gun blade clattered to the ground. "No." Lightning shook her head. "No. No, you're the one, you're the one that's –"

"I am the only one who has never lied to you." Lumina stood and turned to gaze out across the limitless plain of light. "I told you, didn't I? I told you that you couldn't save anyone, never mind everyone. I told you that the world was going to end and that nothing you could do would change it. It isn't my fault that you didn't listen. It isn't my fault that at the end, well, you even lied to yourself."

"No!" Her breathing coming in sharp, halting gasps, Lightning struggled for control. This couldn't be real. She'd done what she was supposed to do. The world was supposed to be safe. "He promised me he would fix everything!"

"And you were stupid enough to believe him." Lumina's lips curled into a smile that would have been gentle if it wasn't for the utter scorn in her eyes. Slowly, she knelt and reached over to lift Lightning's chin. Tears trickled down Lightning's cheeks, and Lumina kissed each one of them away. "You were always so loyal, Lightning, so brave. And in the end, you were too loyal, too brave."

"I don't understand." Lightning closed her eyes. "I don't understand any of this." How could she have failed? What had she done wrong?

"Are you sure you want to understand?" Lumina cupped Lightning's cheeks in her hands, and let their foreheads rest against each other. Only a hair's breadth separated their lips now, and Lumina's words rustled through Lightning's body like a cold winter breeze. "Ask yourself, Lightning, what kind of god kills his own mother for power? What kind of god creates a goddess in his mother's image and then blames her for it? Yes, what kind of god watches the whole world fall to pieces and never lifts a finger to save it?"

Lightning's tears were dry. But her grief was far from over. She wrenched herself from Lumina's arms and pressed her face into the cold light beneath them as she begged for forgiveness that would never come. Lumina ignored her. Instead, she pressed on, speaking almost tenderly into Lightning's ear, running one hand through Lightning's hair.

"You were a fool to trust in a god who could do all those things. He told you that he wanted to start again, to create a new world, a perfect world. Isn't that convenient? Isn't it neat and tidy? He can't create humans, you see. That's why he made you his saviour. Yes, his, not ours. We're not the ones he wants to save. That new world he talked about, how do you think he'll make it free of chaos? Chaos is what makes us human. It is the essence of the human heart, the origin of the soul. A world without chaos cannot have humans in it."

"But why?" Lightning looked up. "Why would he do that?"

Lumina smiled. For so, so long Lighting had been strong, but now she was weak, and Lumina had neither the time nor the inclination for mercy. "Bhunivelze killed his own mother for power. Why would he want his new world to be filled with a power he could not control? And that's what it's always been about: control." Lumina laughed. "He calls himself a god, but even gods can fear."

"Then what is all this?" Lightning forced herself to stand. There had to be a way to fix this. She would do whatever it took and give whatever she had to. "Where are we?"

Lumina rose and spread her arms as though to hold the whole world in them. "The end of all things. The last, dying gasp of creation." Lumina's eyes gleamed, and she took Lightning by the hand. "Or at least we will be. Careful now, it's about to start."

There was a sound like all the thunder in the world, and the flawless light beneath them cracked. It snapped upward in some places, downward in others, and in the distance, at the heart of everything, a vast column of light tore upward into the empty sky. The whole plain of light shattered, came apart in a storm of broken mirrors that left only crystal in its wake.

A low whisper filled the air, and from all directions, small crystals flickered through the air. Some were the size of fireflies. Others were as large as Lightning's fist. And still others were larger still, the size of a full-grown man. Almost all of them swept by without pause, a wind only they could feel carrying them toward the tower of light that stood at the centre of creation. But a few others lingered, tumbling to the ground nearby. They quivered, trembling, and grew until a forest of crystals surrounded Lightning and Lumina.

"Look down, Lightning." Lumina's voice was soft but there was no mistaking the command in it. "You must see this before the end."

Lightning looked down. Shimmering in the depths of the crystal beneath their feet was the history of the world. It was everything: every memory, every scrap of wisdom and knowledge that the beings of Gran Pulse had ever possessed.

"Some of the clans of Gran Pulse believed the world had a soul." Lumina bent to study the images more closely. "I still don't know if they're right. But if the world has a soul, this is it."

"What about that column?" Lightning could feel the answer to her question clawing at the edges of her mind. She knew, but she needed to hear it spoken aloud. She needed to hear it come from someone else's lips. Above them, the sky was ablaze again, her life and memories shimmering like so many stars. She couldn't bear to look. Her failures were there too, whole constellations of failures. And at the centre, dark beyond imagination as it devoured everything else, was the spectre of her greatest failure. It was this exact moment, a world devoid of everyone except for her and Lumina.

"It is chaos in its purest form."

"Chaos?" Lightning laughed, a tinge of madness in the sound. She knew what chaos was. It was ugly and vile and it hard ruined everything.

"Chaos is change, Lightning." Lumina stretched one hand toward the column of light. "That doesn't make it evil. After all, it is the origin of the human heart, the essence of the Unseen World given form. It is a power that can crush gods and shape the universe. And Etro gave it to us. Now, it's time to give it back."

"That's why he chose me." Lightning shook her head. "Isn't it?"

"Of course. Chaos is beautiful because it is change and stability, life and death, everything and nothing. Even Bhunivelze cannot conquer it, but you can."

Bhunivelze's words echoed through Lightning's mind, but they were hollow now. He'd told her that he needed her to guide souls to the new world. But if Lumina was right…

"Only something born of chaos can control it. That was why Mwynn was consumed, why Etro chose you as her champion. Mortals were forged of chaos, Lightning. It lies at the very core of who and what we are." Lumina smiled serenely. "That's why he needed you. He needed a nice little pawn who could control the chaos for him."

It was too much. Lightning staggered back. She ran into one of the nearby crystals only to flinch as though she'd been struck. In that fleeting moment of contact, she'd seen Hope, seen his whole life unfold before her in the blink of an eye. Everything he'd been, and everything he'd wished to be had been laid bare.

"What are these crystals?" Lightning looked around in horror. The crystal forest around them was no longer a thing of beauty.

"Souls, Lightning. The ones you saw earlier floating through the air, those belonged to people you didn't know. These ones." Lumina gestured at the crystal forest around them. "They belong to the people you did know. That's why they stopped here. They know you. They're drawn to you. Why don't you take a look? You owe them that much, I think."

Lightning wanted to refuse. Lumina might have spoken the truth so far, but she'd done it in a way that hurt Lightning as much as possible. The other woman enjoyed it, savoured it, loved it. But still, Lightning went back to the crystal. Gently, she put her hands on it. Yes, this was Hope, all his love and kindness, all of his fear and desperation as the end drew close. She walked around the crystal, and in its gleaming faces, she saw all the Hopes that could have been in all the future and pasts that were possible.

"The soul is a wonderful thing. Those crystals show everything we are, everything we were, and everything we could have been. That is the meaning of a soul." Lumina chuckled. "Go on, keep looking. Take the chance before he comes."

"He?"

"Your precious god is coming, and he will demand an answer from you. You know what answer he wants."

Yes, Lightning could see it now. Bhunivelze would want her to help him, to use all of that chaos to remake the world as he saw fit. But where would it go? Chaos could never be destroyed, only contained. She would become the new Etro, doomed to watch over the chaos for all eternity as he made his perfect little world free of the only power he could not control.

Silently, Lightning walked through the crystal forest. They were all here.

Her parents.

Amodar.

Snow.

Vanille.

Sazh and Dajh.

Fang…

She fell to her knees in front of Fang's crystal and wept again. She could feel Fang's passion through the crystal, the fierce, fiery spirit that made the huntress who she was. But more than that, she could feel the huntress's love, feel the protective fire that had burnt as bright as a star until it had finally died – even stars died – when the world came to an end.

Lightning had protected so many people. Too many. But only Fang had ever tried to protect her.

It wasn't fair. She thumped her fists against the crystal. None of it was fair. She pressed her face against the crystal, lost herself in a thousand different destinies. In some of them Fang hated her. In others they were only friends. But in others – and these were the ones she focused on, the ones she clutched onto with all her strength – she and Fang were more than friends. They were lovers, soul mates, two pieces of a whole. She could almost feel Fang's arms around her, almost feel the gentle press of Fang's lips against hers.

A vision swept over her: her and Fang tangled in bed, footsteps outside the door, children laughing. It was so perfect. It was the way things should have been. Why couldn't things have been like that? Hadn't she suffered enough to earn her redemption? Hadn't she given enough?

Then it was gone.

Her eyes opened. The crystal forest was coming apart, turning to dust right before her eyes. She scrambled to keep hold of the crystals, but the dust rushed through her fingers, Fang's crystal carried away on the breeze. She was beyond tears this time. Instead, she sat on the ground, knees hugged to her chest, face hidden from the world. Only then, when she was beyond sorrow, did she realise something.

Every person she'd met, every person she'd ever cared about had been in that forest of crystals. All of them except one. Frantically, she pushed to her feet. For the first time, there was something close to fear on Lumina's face.

"What are you –"

Lightning grabbed Lumina's hands. What a fool she'd been to miss this. "You're Serah." Lightning's laughter was broken. "I can't believe I listened to you when you said you weren't her. It was the only thing you've lied to me about."

"You're wrong." Lumina tried to pull away, and when that failed she gave Lightning the haughtiest look she could. "I am not your sister. I simply took on her appearance to –"

"Don't lie to me!" Lightning roared. She dragged Lumina into her arms. She smelled just like Serah. "Don't you dare lie to me now. Serah's crystal – her soul – it was the only one missing. All the others were there, but not her. The only way that could happen is if her soul was somewhere else – in someone else. Serah's alive and you're her."

Lumina jerked out Lightning's arms. "Don't touch me!"

But Lightning wouldn't be stopped. She stalked forward again, Lumina shrinking away with every step. "It's true, isn't it? But how? What did you do?"

"The same thing you did!" Lumina snarled. Then she sank to her knees. She laughed and laughed until tears of frustration and sorrow poured down her cheeks. "You saw it in the crystals. There's more than one world out there. In one of them, Serah went after you. She set you free by taking your place in Valhalla. It drove her mad in the end, just like Caius, drove her mad enough that she wanted to see the end of the world, to see everything in creation come to nothing. Don't you get it? Her sacrifice, your sacrifice, none of it means anything. The gods don't care about us. They never have. We are slaves to a destiny they have written, and our freedom is nothing more than a dream."

"Serah." Lightning wrapped her arms around Lumina. "I'm so, so sorry. So sorry." That was why Lumina could control the chaos. She'd been drowned in it just like Lightning, just like Caius.

"Don't be. It wasn't your fault." Lumina laughed again. "And it doesn't matter anymore. There's nothing we can do. I just want to see the look on Bhunivelze's face when I call him the monster he really is."

Lightning buried her face in Lumina's hair. All the pieces were coming together now. And for the first time in what felt like forever, she knew what to do. Lumina never even felt the knife slip in between her ribs.

"What?" Lumina flopped back and Lightning held her, let her sister's blood stain her hands. "Why?"

"You said that only a mortal could control chaos. So that's what I'm going to do. But first I have to set you free. No one else should have to pay the price."

Lumina reached up to run one hand bloody hand along Lightning's cheek. "You fool, still trying to protect me." She laughed wetly. "It won't work. There is no conquering fate. You're not strong enough to control all of that chaos. Nothing is."

"You're wrong." Lightning thought of Fang and the others. They'd killed a god once. She could deny another if she had to. "I'll show you." Her voice hardened. "I'll show him too."

"Yes." Lumina smiled faintly. "Your eyes. It's been so long since your eyes have been like this. I like them better this way."

Then she was still. A moment later she was gone, another crystal bound for the column of chaos. Lightning took a moment to wipe her sister's blood off her hands, and then she started to walk toward the centre of creation. It was time to do what she should have done a long time ago.

She wasn't sure how long she walked, but at last she stood at the base of the pillar of light. The souls of every human who had ever lived and would ever live were all here. She could hear their voices calling to her, begging her to save them. She didn't know if she could. But she would try. That would have to be enough.

Above her, the sky tore and it was as though the sun had risen. Bhunivelze was here.

_It is time._

His will crashed down on her with all the weight of the ocean. It swept through her, over her, around her. To refuse it was death. To deny it was heresy. Yet she stood firm, and behind her, the chaos shifted, brooded, waited.

Creation turned on moments like these.

"Yes, it is."

Satisfaction. Yes, that's what he felt. He was certain he had won. He had good reason to be. He had played them all for fools, had slaughtered his own mother, had manipulated all of them for this one moment. He would create his own perfect world. A world without chaos. A world without sin. A world as cold and dead and empty as he was on the inside.

_Join your soul to mine, and I will use the chaos to remake the world._

"What kind of world?"

_A perfect world._

"Perfection is a myth." Lightning laughed softly. Lumina had opened her eyes. She was seeing for the very first time. How like Serah to end up saving her. "I know what you want. There will be no place for chaos in your world, but chaos is what makes us human."

_My world will be perfect. I will make it so._

"Humans don't need perfection. We never have. All you want is control, but humans don't need the gods to live their lives. All we want is the right to choose, the right to decide our own destiny."

_You will fail. You will suffer._

Bhunivelze's mind slammed into hers again and again, looking for some weakness. But just this once, Lightning would stand strong. The chaos behind her reached out, floated in glowing tendrils around her.

"Then they will be our failures and our victories, our losses and our loves. We will own them all. And that's enough for me."

_You defy me?_

"Yes." Lightning watched as the whole world was ripped apart by Bhunivelze's might. Only the pillar of light behind her and the area around it remained unharmed. Lumina had been right. Not even the gods could conquer chaos, and now it bent to Lightning's will. "You lied to me about what you would do."

_You will not do this._

"I will."

_You will die._

"Then I will die gladly." Lightning smiled and stepped back into the seething geyser of chaos and light_._

In an instant, her soul was torn into a billion, billion pieces, every fragment of her existence ripped apart. But she was still alive. She was more than mortal but less than a god, and it was finally time to take advantage of that. The chaos was nothing more or less than pure potential. It could change the world or hold it in place. It could devour the past and erase the future. But above all things, it was the essence of the human heart, and it was with her heart, her soul, that she would control it.

She thought back to the forest of crystals, to all the souls she'd seen. She thought of Hope and the others. She thought of Serah. And last of all, she thought of Fang. And she poured those thoughts into the chaos around her, let them shape all of that untapped potential into a force capable of transforming all of creation.

Dimly, she was aware of Bhunivelze's rage, of the titanic, universe-cracking power that he hurled at her. But none of it mattered. He might have called himself a god, but against the chaos, even he could not win. She laughed then, long and loud and defiant, and the chaos spilled outward in all directions, an unstoppable force that remade creation and swept backward and forward in time, rewriting destiny. Destroying destiny.

Chaos had no limits. And for an instant, neither did she.

She would make another world.

Not a perfect world.

Not a world without sin.

It would be a free world, not a world not built on lies and ruled by gods who could never hope to understand the workings of the human heart. It would be a world where the gods were only memories, where people – not gods – made the impossible possible.

Yes. She knew what kind of world it would be.

It would be the world she'd glimpsed for only a moment: Fang in her arms, and their children's footsteps just outside the door. She held that image in her heart, clutched it to her soul. Let the chaos see what she wanted. Let it remake the world anew.

And then Lightning was gone, the raw power she commanded destroying everything she was.

X X X

Lightning woke.

"What's wrong?" Fang leaned up and yawned. Then her eyes widened. "Lightning, you're crying. What's going on?"

The pink haired woman reached up to touch her cheek. "I… I don't know." She continued to weep, unable to stop the tears as Fang pulled her into her arms. "I don't know why I'm crying."

"Hey, it's okay." Fang grinned. "I know the movie the kids picked yesterday was bad, but it's not something to have nightmares about."

Lightning laughed. "Fang!" She scrubbed at her cheeks. "That's not it. I… I had a dream, not about the movie, but… I can't remember." She paused. "Only… it was very sad." She swallowed thickly. "I… someone was asking me if I was happy now. Someone who sounded a lot like me."

"That sounds kind of creepy." Fang chuckled and pressed a kiss to Lightning's forehead. "So, are you happy?"

"Yes." Lightning laughed softly. "Yes, I am. Come on, let's go back to sleep."

Footsteps echoed down the corridor.

"Not likely, I'm afraid. You know how they are. They probably want us to take them somewhere cool now that it's school holidays. On the upside, at least we're not the only ones suffering. Serah and Snow are too."

X X X

Sometimes there are no happy endings. And sometimes there are. But someone has to pay the price. That's what a saviour does.

X X X

**Author's Notes**

As always, I neither own Final Fantasy, nor am I making any money off of this.

This story is a product of all the thinking I've been doing about the Final Fantasy XIII mythology. What stands out most to me is the ineptitude of the various gods in the mythology. None of them seem to have much idea of what they are doing, or if they do they're not very good at it.

What strikes me in particular is the role of chaos. It would seem to be a natural thing. Indeed, its presence in the human soul makes it seem almost good. But then it's cast as something of a villain. Perhaps there's a reason for that. Maybe the reason the world is coming apart because of all the chaos is because the world wasn't made right in the first place. If chaos is going to exist, then the world needs to be made in a way capable of dealing with it. It seems odd that chaos can exist inside human beings but can consume the gods and their creations.

What I consider the most interesting thing is that Bhunivelze wants Lighting to act as a saviour, guiding souls into a new world free of chaos. But chaos would seem to be the very essence of the human heart, a defining characteristic, if you will. What then would souls look like stripped of chaos? Would they even be human anymore? And isn't it convenient that in a world without chaos, Bhunivelze would almost certainly be truly omnipotent. And this is a god who killed his own mother for power.

My theory about Lumina is nothing more than that – a theory, a wild one too. Still, it does make a bit of sense. She looks like Serah, and alternate timelines are possible (we saw this in Final Fantasy XIII-2). If Serah had taken Lightning's place as Etro's champion, there is no telling what sort of changes that would lead to. She might end up like Lightning, or she could end up like Caius. Lumina is, at least here, Serah twisted by the same madness that eventually turned Caius against Etro (not that I blame him, Etro's decision making is appallingly bad). Don't read too much into this – it's a nice theory, but there's no way it's going to end up being right.

The ending is one way that a new world might be created. Why should Bhunivelze get to decide what the new world is like? He is clearly not omniscient (or he wouldn't be in this mess) and he is clearly not omnipotent either. Moreover, he has spent most of creation sleeping. Lightning, however, understands both the worst and the best sides of human nature. She understands the tragedies of life as well as she understands the triumphs. And as a human with her own shard of chaos inside her, she is ideally positioned to use the power of chaos to remake the world.

In the end, it all comes down to choice. Lightning can finally make her own choice, or she can keep going along with the destiny the gods have written. I'd like to believe, she's strong enough to make her own choices, not simply pander to a god who has done nothing to deserve her loyalty. Lightning has earned the right to choose.

My apologies if parts of this are a bit rough. The idea came to me one morning, and I kind of just hacked this out in one sitting. This is what happens when I think about Final Fantasy XIII and listen to Avicii's "Wake Me Up." I'd also like to tip my invisible internet hat to Zerrat for getting the Lumina ball rolling.

The ending may seem familiar to some of you. It's the Ordinary Heroes universe. Yes, I do believe in happy endings although Lightning might just have to remake the universe to get one.

I would also like to mention that I now have two short stories up on Amazon. If you're interested in a paranormal Western, "The Gunslinger and the Necromancer" may be what you're looking for. However, if you enjoy fantasy, you might like "The Last Huntress." There are links to both stories in my profile. Give them a try – you won't be disappointed!

As always, I appreciate feedback. Reviews and comments are welcome.


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